Coffee shop AU: In which Adrian's father owns a coffee shop, and Marinette makes amazing pastries. / "In some stories, ladybugs have been known to bring life to people who are unlucky enough to lead quite dismal lives in the first place." ((Thanks to tumblr user chat-log for the idea))

This AU was way too cute to pass up. Thanks so much to Tumblr user chat-log for the idea (:

"Your answer is wrong."

Adrien looked up, eyebrows pulled together, searching for the person that decided to take it upon themselves to fact check his homework for him.

Who he found, to his surprise, was a very pretty girl.

She stood above him, one hand on her hip and the other carrying a tray full of coffee. Her lips were pulled into a nervous smile as she nodded toward the pages of homework sprawled out in front of him.

"Ladybugs represent luck, not life. That answer is wrong."

He turned to face her, a smirk of his own growing to rival her smile.

"I believe that's a matter of opinion, my lady. In some stories, ladybugs have been known to bring life to the lives of people who are unlucky enough to lead quite dismal ones to begin with."

Her eyes rolled, and his stomach rolled with them. So blue...

"Maybe it's a matter of perspective then, hmm?"

She turned and walked away, and he watched her until she disappeared into the back of the coffee shop out of his sight.

He waited until she was gone before he erased his answer, and wrote hers instead.

Marinette loved her job more than nearly anything.

She had been working with pastries since before she could walk, since her parents owned one of (arguably, in her opinion) the best bakeries in Paris.

So when it came time for her to find a job due to the fact that her parents wouldn't let her work in the bakery, because she "needed to find her own path", putting her baking skills to use in Gabriel Agreste's coffee shop was the next best thing.

She was at home there, moving amongst the customers with a practiced ease as she took orders and made desserts, laughing and talking and smiling to anyone who came in. She made (arguably, also in her opinion) quite an amazing chocolate cake, and her sugar cookies were on par with her own parents'.

But the best part of her job was the boy who had been there every day since the beginning.

Every day like clockwork he was there, from one o'clock to 3:30. He would never order anything; he'd sit in the farthest window to the left and unload his homework in front of him, never saying a word. In fact, it had been nearly three months and Marinette had yet to learn his name.

(She nearly brought herself to ask once. She had begun to make her way over to his table with a cookie in hand and a nervous smile on her face, but at the last minute she aborted her mission and made a beeline for the kitchen, where she hid for the next half hour as she regained her composure.

She had spent the next two months avoiding his table like it was quarantine.)

But there was something different about today. He wasn't as composed as he normally was. In fact, Marinette had never seen him this agitated before.

She'd been watching him for over an hour, his expression growing more frustrated by the minute. His head was in one of his hands, fingers tangled in his hair as he furiously scratched something out on his paper with the other.

Her eyebrows pulled together, mirroring his, and she straightened up in determination.

This would be the day.

Giving her hair and makeup a quick check-up in the reflection of a napkin dispenser, Marinette picked out the prettiest sugar cookie on display and made her way towards his table, determined not to back out this time.

She'd nearly made it there when he looked up, his expression full of irritation and exasperation, and Marinette stopped where she was. His eyes fell onto her, and he watched with keen interest as her face grew a brilliant shade of red, and the small plate she was holding the cookie on began to shake.

"Yeah?"

His voice seemed to remind Marinette of her small mission, and she squeaked a bit as she stumbled forward.

"Oh, uh, you look like you're having a hard time. Not that- not that I don't think you can do it or anything- uh, whatever it is you're doing? So, anyways, I... I cookie a brought you. I mean-" she practically threw the plate at him, and he had to dive a bit to catch it, "I brought you this. It's... it's on me. Okay! Bye."

"Wait!"

His voice echoed through the small coffee shop, bouncing off of Marinette's back and stopping her retreat. She turned slowly, waiting for an insult to be thrown, along with (possibly) a cookie.

Instead, she was met with a nervous grin.

"You're the girl from the other day, aren't you? The one that knows about ladybugs?"

Marinette felt a small heat crawl up the back of her neck. She hadn't expected him to remember something as embarrassing as that. It had been almost two weeks ago that she'd mentioned that to him in passing. But she nodded anyway.

"Uh, yeah. That's me."

The boys nervous smile became one of relief, and he turned back to the table and began rifling through his stack of papers.

"You know, you really saved me on that assignment. If you hadn't have said anything I would have gotten it wrong. So thanks!"

He didn't look at her as he spoke, instead focusing tossing papers around, pushing books aside and using his right foot to pull the chair opposite to him around the side of the table. Marinette had begun using his distraction as a moment of escape, but was caught in the process as he turned back to her again.

"Do you think you could help me with this one, too?"

This is going to be a four-part story, so here's part one!

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